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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23122447">Here comes a candle to light you to bed</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dissenter/pseuds/Dissenter'>Dissenter</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Avatar: The Last Airbender</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Azula (Avatar) Redemption, Azula (Avatar)-centric, Azula is not ok, Character Turned Into a Ghost, Child Abuse, Complicated Relationships, Grief/Mourning, Growing Up, Life Changing Field Trip, Mental Instability, Neither is Zuko, Ozai (Avatar) Being a Terrible Parent, Ozai (Avatar) is an Asshole, Sibling Bonding, The Agni Kai goes even worse, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 06:14:50</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,220</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23122447</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dissenter/pseuds/Dissenter</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The Agni Kai goes even worse than in canon, Azula somehow has to pick up the pieces.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Azula &amp; Zuko (Avatar)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>43</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>586</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Burn too bright</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Zuko chooses to fight back.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It wasn’t fair. Was the thought that echoed in his mind plaintive, and fragile and absolutely irrational, when he turned around and saw his father facing him. His father, the Firelord, powerful and unstoppable,  how could Zuko ever hope to fight him? It wasn’t fair, but in the end did it really make sense to be so surprised? When was the last time anything had been fair.</p>
<p>Zuko faced his father across the Agni Kai arena, and he was struck by a sudden, ice cold certainty. He was going to die. Despite everything, it still came as a surprise.</p>
<p>His father was going to kill him this time, in broad daylight, in front of an audience of thousands, and not even the Fire Sages would be able to call him to account for it. Not for a death in an Agni Kai, a fight blessed by the spirits themselves.</p>
<p>And he wanted to believe he was imagining things, that the cold dread settling into his bones as his father walked across the arena towards him, was an overreaction, a symptom of his imagination running wild. That his father would punish him for his disrespect of course, but he wouldn’t really hurt him, not badly, certainly not…</p>
<p>But Zuko still remembered, even when he tried not to. A night awake in the dark, terrified of what would come. Azula’s mocking words “Dad’s going to kill you?” the smile she used when it wasn’t safe to care, the smile that was a lie so good that even Azula herself believed it. He remembered his mother telling him to be brave, remembered finding her gone in the morning, and his father <em>smiling</em>. He remembered, and he wasn’t a good enough liar to convince himself it meant nothing.</p>
<p>He thought about surrendering, about begging for his life. It might be enough, father liked it when people bowed to him, liked it when they acknowledged his power. He thought about surrendering, he would have surrendered but he’d never seen his father’s eyes so cold, and he knew that surrender wouldn’t save him, that, that this time begging wouldn’t be enough. Father was never one for mercy.</p>
<p>But there was a knife back in Zuko’s quarters that said “never give up without a fight”,  there was a memory of his mother telling him to be brave, there was Azula watching with the blank expression he had never managed to master but still his little sister under the mask, and he didn’t want to die. So he stood up, he stepped forward, and he fought; a frightened child against a grown man. He fought, half in a desperate attempt to impress his father, in the hope that if he just did well enough, proved himself strong enough, maybe his father would change his mind, would decide he was useful after all and spare him. He fought, half out of pure survival instinct, trying to defend himself, to survive in the moment, to make the <em>threat/pain/danger </em>give up and go away.</p>
<p>And maybe, just maybe, there was a small part of him that fought out of spite, for the slim hope of making Ozai pay for killing him, because he knew. He was going to die, and the only justice he would ever have for that was what he could take with his own two hands right here and now.</p>
<p>The sky was blue and the sun was warm above them and oh Agni he didn’t want to die. He kicked and fought like a cornered animal, fire blazing brighter and more powerful than it ever had before in desperate will to live. He could tell he’d surprised his father, surprised everyone. No-one had expected him to put up so much of a fight. For a moment, a single disbelieving heartbeat, he’d actually thought he might be able to win.</p>
<p>Then reality came crashing back in. His father had kicked out an arc of flame and broken his root, and then Zuko was on the ground, watching his father’s fist come down on him, wreathed in fire. Death coming down, and there was no way Zuko could move fast enough to escape, but he wasn’t fully out. Because in that moment, in the rush of delivering the final blow his father had forgotten Zuko’s left hand. As Ozai’s fist hit home Zuko managed one last strike.</p>
<p>He smelled burning flesh, his own, and his father’s, indistinguishable from each other. Heard his own scream, heard his father’s roar halfway between rage and agony, the utter shocked silence of the crowd. He saw the clear blue sky and the sun above him. And then there was nothing but blackness.</p>
<p>…</p>
<p>The crowd was quiet, terrifyingly so, as the medics came to drag Ozai out of the arena. No-one knew how to react. The burn on his face was red and raw, visible even from the very backs of the stands, and there would be no hiding what had happened.</p>
<p>A child had just made the Firelord scream.</p>
<p>Azula sat in the royal box, perfectly poised as she always was, but inside she felt frozen at the physical evidence that father was not invincible, that he was just a man.</p>
<p>She didn’t even blink. She knew better. Just because father was in no state to be watching her, didn’t mean that none of his people were. She certainly didn’t look back down at the sand, at the small charred body still lying on the sand.</p>
<p>Stupid Zuzu, getting himself killed, he should have known better than to cross father, he knew father was not a patient man and yet still he just kept making him angry over and over again. Why did he do that? Everyone had known father’s patience would run out eventually. Probably Zuko had been the only one stupid enough not to see it.</p>
<p>Azula didn’t cry. She’d known Zuko was going to get himself killed sooner or later, she’d <em>told </em>him even. It wasn’t her fault if he hadn’t had the sense to listen. There was no sense crying over the inevitable,  Zuko’s body charred on the ground was <em>exactly </em>what she expected. It was always going to end like this, and Azula wasn’t enough of a fool to waste her tears on it.</p>
<p>No the surprise wasn’t what father had done to Zuko, the real surprise  was what Zuko had done to father. <em>That </em>was a surprise. She really hadn’t thought Zuko had it in him.</p>
<p>Zuko was weak, he was foolish, he was useless, he was soft. Azula knows that, she knows. But, he fought, he fought <em>father, </em>he managed to <em>hurt </em>father, when father always seemed unstoppable.</p>
<p>The fighting Azula could maybe see, Zuko always did have trouble recognising when he couldn’t win, but landing that hit? That was something no-one had seen coming. And now that they had seen it they wouldn’t see Firelord Ozai the same way. Azula knew that because she didn’t see him the same way either.</p>
<p>If she was being honest with herself, and with Zuko gone she would probably have to be because no-one else would, she hadn’t believed her father was human enough to bleed, to scream in pain. That <em>Zuko </em>had managed to make him do just that, silly, weak, soft Zuko, that shook her, far more than she wanted to admit. It meant that father had never been as unstoppable as either she or Zuko had believed. The illusion was shattered, and now she knew, her father was just a man. A powerful man yes, maybe even a monster, but a child, her weaker brother, managed to scar him, and if that was true, well, what could an adult do, what could <em>Azula </em>do.</p>
<p>She didn’t know what to do with that newfound realisation.</p>
<p>They covered Zuko with a sheet before they carried him off. Took him straight to be laid out for cremation, no sense taking him to a hospital when he was so very clearly dead. Azula did not cry, didn’t try to see the body.  She knew better.</p>
<p>Uncle Iroh cried, but Uncle Iroh was the dragon of the west and it would take more than tears for anyone to mistake him for vulnerable.</p>
<p>Father didn’t attend the funeral at all, still unconscious with fever from the wound Zuko had given him. With a burn of that extent, infection was more or less inevitable, even in a strong firebender.  If the thought of that of her father delirious and hurting at Zuzu’s hand made her smile a little, well, it wasn’t like anyone could tell <em>why </em>she was smiling. She smiled all through the funeral. Iroh had looked at her in disapproval for that, but she ignored him. After all, he was the one who’d let Zuko into that war room, who hadn’t stepped in to save him from himself when father’s anger became apparent. He didn’t get a say. If Zuzu hadn’t been dead he would have understood why she smiled.</p>
<p>Azula sat through the interminable hours of a royal funeral until finally they released Zuko’s ashes to the wind, and a part of her wondered a little just how much more burning had been necessary to complete the work father had started. He must have been pretty close to ashes already.</p>
<p>She almost turned to ask Zuzu about it, with a slight edge of glee at how uncomfortable the question would make him, before she remembered, there was only empty space sitting next to her. Zuko was gone.</p>
<p>It bothered her more than she thought it would, that absence.</p>
<p>…</p>
<p>When Azula opened her eyes the next morning Zuko was looking down at her, paler even than he’d been in life, with no warmth in him.   </p>
<p>“Have you been crying Lala.” He said, with a faint edge of disbelief. “I thought only babies cried.”</p>
<p>Azula felt she was entirely justified in flinching. It wasn’t every day dead siblings turned up out of nowhere to accuse a person of unnecessary sentimentality. She wasn’t sure if this was better or worse than the uncomfortable emptiness of his absence.</p>
<p>“Don’t be stupid Zuzu. You’re imagining things.” There was a scar on his face, the mirror of the one he’d left on father, still red and raw and angry, the scar of the wound that had killed him, although father hadn’t stopped there. Azula reached out to touch it, only for her hand to pass through his face like smoke.</p>
<p>“What did you just do? What’s happening?” Zuko sounded unfairly alarmed, considering he was the one haunting her.</p>
<p>“<em>I </em>didn’t do anything dumdum.” She snapped, angry, for reasons she wasn’t ready to admit to herself, let alone Zuko. “<em>You </em>went and got yourself killed.” Zuko paled even further.</p>
<p>“I’m dead?” He said, sounding very small and fragile.</p>
<p>“Yes idiot or did you forget?” Zuko flinched, and Azula didn’t feel at all bad about it.</p>
<p>“I don’t… it’s all a bit… blurred towards the end. I died?” He sounded so <em>surprised. </em>Azula wanted to set something on fire.</p>
<p>“Honestly what did you <em>think </em>would happen when you challenged father to an Agni Kai? Or did you forget that too?” She snapped instead.</p>
<p>“No, I remember now I think.” He said with a look of dawning realisation that made Azula <em>itch.</em> “Dad killed me, didn’t he?” Azula just nodded. If she spoke out loud she didn’t know <em>what </em>she’d say. She kept silent as Zuko collapsed onto her bed and hugged his knees. What was there to say to something like that? Maybe Ty Lee would have had the words, or Zuko himself, Azula never had a gift for comfort.</p>
<p>They were both quiet for a long time after that.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Out the corner of your eye</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Zuko doesn't leave. Azula isn't sure how to feel about that.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Azula doesn't want to care that Zuko stayed.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Zuko didn’t leave. It was surprising really, in Azula’s experience everyone left in the end, usually because father wanted them gone. Father had definitely wanted Zuko gone and yet, he was still there, refusing to admit that he didn’t belong. Maybe it wasn’t so surprising after all. That was Zuko all over really, never knew when to quit.</p>
<p>But he didn’t leave, even now. Even after Father <em>burned </em>him, and Azula couldn’t quite settle on whether to be furious or pleased at the realisation that Zuko was special after all.</p>
<p>If he’d been special why had he died at all? <em>Why had father killed him?</em></p>
<p> Azula didn’t understand, it made her angry, made her <em>hurt </em>deep down where she kept all the feelings she knew better than to admit to.</p>
<p>Because her brother was dead, burned to ash, she <em>watched </em>him burn, and smiled just like she was supposed to, and that was meant to be the end of it. Zuko finally proving himself useless and leaving her alone with Father just like she’d always known he would.</p>
<p>Except that wasn’t how it happened, because Zuko had died, but he’d burned Father in doing so, had proved himself to be not useless by every measure Father had taught them to value, and it had felt wrong and right all at once.</p>
<p>Then he showed up in her bedroom, not quite solid enough, but still too clear, and she wasn’t sure if he was a ghost or she was crazy, wasn’t even sure which she’d prefer. Because on the one hand she didn’t want to be crazy couldn’t afford to be crazy when she knew Father was just waiting for her to slip, but on the other hand if Zuko was really there, then that meant he hadn’t <em>left, </em>and that meant everything Azula thought she knew about the world was wrong. She couldn’t afford that either.</p>
<p>“Why are you still here anyway?” She snapped at him, and she didn’t know how much of the anger in her voice was real, but she wasn’t sure it mattered anyway, because he didn’t flinch at her tone the way he would have when he was alive. She supposed the reality of his death, and the fact that he was beyond physical concerns must have finally started to sink in.</p>
<p>“Why are you still here?” She asked, and he didn’t answer then. Not then, and not the second or third time she asked either, even though he’d been lingering for weeks at that point.</p>
<p>No-one else could see him. That much became clear fairly quickly. Azula went to lessons, went to practice, spent time cultivating useful connections with Mai and Ty Lee, (They weren’t her friends, friends were a weakness and heirs to the Fire throne weren’t <em>allowed </em>to have weaknesses.) And Zuko followed her, lingered never more than a fireblast’s distance away, talked to her even, sometimes, although after she snapped at him not to distract her in public he did that less. Zuko followed her, always, never out of sight, never out of reach except in all the ways he was always out of reach, and no-one but Azula could see him.</p>
<p>Ty Lee looked sometimes, at the empty space in the air where he was standing.  Little casual glances, like she could almost see something out the corner of her eye, but she never actually saw Zuko. No-one could, not the way Azula did, almost as clear as if he was still alive, so infuriatingly <em>present </em>when he had absolutely no right to be. And maybe that was an argument in favour of Azula being crazy, seeing things that weren’t really there at all. But on the other hand, maybe that was just how ghosts worked.  Certainly it fit that if Zuko was going to hang around after he died it would be in the most <em>annoying </em>way possible.</p>
<p>Zuko had been awkward and in the way all their lives, why would he be any different in death. The very fact that he was still there was a pretty strong indication.</p>
<p>He was dead, he got himself killed like an <em>idiot, </em>and yet he was <em>still </em>there and Azula didn’t <em>want </em>to feel anything about that, she didn’t <em>want </em>to care, but she did.</p>
<p>She did care.</p>
<p>Maybe she always had, even if she hadn’t dared to admit it to herself, it was just, now she couldn’t ignore it. Not with Zuko ghost pale beside her wherever she went. If he would just leave her alone like he was supposed to, like everyone always did in the end, then maybe she wouldn’t have to <em>feel </em>things about him dying.</p>
<p>“Why are you still here?” She snapped for the fiftieth time but a part of her already knew the answer, because Zuko was still there but only for her. For the rest of them, he was just <em>gone. </em>For Ty Lee who had always tried to bridge the gap between Azula and Zuko, for Mai who had used to blush just a little when he was around, for Uncle who had <em>cried </em>for him, in public like it didn’t matter who saw, for all of them and the rest of the world too, Zuko was silent and unseen, the way he <em>should </em>have been for Azula.</p>
<p>“I’m here for you ‘Zula.” He answered finally, frustrated that she hadn’t figured it out, and for that she really couldn’t blame him, because in hindsight it really should have been obvious. But just because it was obvious didn’t mean that it made sense.</p>
<p>“Why?” She asked and if her tone came across more lost than angry, well it wasn’t like Zuko could tell anyone was it. She thought it was a fair enough question, it wasn’t like the two of them had ever got on well.</p>
<p>“I don’t think I could have done anything else.” Zuko replied and if he hadn’t sounded just as lost as Azula felt, she might have thrown a fireblast at him for being so infuriatingly righteous. “I don’t know how this happened, or how it works, or what I’m supposed to be doing, but I couldn’t just <em>leave </em>you with him.”</p>
<p>“Maybe you should have thought about that <em>before </em>you went and got yourself killed.” Azula sniped, but her heart wasn’t really in it.</p>
<p>“Probably.” He admitted dryly. “But I think we both know that considering the consequences before I acted was never one of my strong points.”</p>
<p>“Well that’s an understatement.” And it wasn’t funny, it shouldn’t be funny, but Azula found herself laughing anyway, with Zuko grinning back, because what else could they do. Some things were too awful for tears to do justice.</p>
<p>“So you’re staying then?” She continued, once the half hysterical amusement died down.</p>
<p>“I think so. I mean, it’s not like there’s an instruction book for this, but it feels like I’m not going anywhere for a pretty long time.” Nice to see Zuko’s inability to figure out what he was supposed to be doing carried over to his afterlife. At least some things didn’t change.</p>
<p>“Good.” Azula decided. He shouldn’t be there, really, he was dead, and Father had wanted him gone, and if she wasn’t very careful someone would figure out she was seeing him and tell father and there was no way that ended well. He shouldn’t be there, she should want him gone but…</p>
<p>He had stayed for <em>her. </em>All the people that had left her behind, left her alone when father wanted them to leave, and it was Zuko that chose her. That was important.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I think maybe a timeskip next chapter. bring everything a bit closer to canon. Azula still needs to get sent on an avatar hunting mission of course, but aside from that it's just Zuko the friendly ghost following Azula around trying to look after her and keep her from becoming too much of a terrifying murderchild, for the next couple of years.</p>
        </blockquote><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Yep, so I killed Zuko. Sorry, but the idea wouldn't leave me alone.<br/>Yes, Zuko is now haunting Azula, more details to come, he's probably real and not a figment of her imagination, almost certainly, Azula has compiled evidence. A lot of people doubt Azula on the subject though.<br/>Azula will in fact end up on an Avatar hunting mission just in time to see a particular airbender defrosted. No Zuko will not be coming back to life.<br/>There will however be much sibling bonding, and healing, and personal growth.<br/>Also Ozai will get what's coming to him.<br/>If you want to know what Zuko did to Ozai's face, it's basically the same as Zuko's scar in canon.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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